He placed the letter as close to his heart as he could get it, and it warmed him like a poultice. He would go shave himself again and brush up a bit for Sheila’s tea-fête.
As he groped slowly down the dark stairway he heard voices on the stage. He recognized Crumb’s husky tones:
“If you’ll give me one more chance, Val, I swear I’ll never disappoint you again. I’m on the water-mobile for good this time.”
Eldon felt sorry for the poor old man. He paused to hear Batterson’s epitaph on him:
“Well, Jim, I’ll give you another try. But it’s against my will.”
“Oh, thank you, thank you, Val!”
“Don’t thank me. Thank that dub, Eldon. If he hadn’t thrown the scene last night you’d never get another look-in. No more would you if I could pick up anybody here. So you can go on to-night, but if your foot slips again, Jim, so help me, you’ll never put your head in another of our theaters.”
As Crumb’s heart went up, Eldon’s followed the see-saw law. All his hopes and plans were collapsed. He would not go to Sheila’s tea with this disgrace upon him and sit like a death’s-head in her presence.
And how could he present himself at her hotel in the shabby clothes he wore? She and her aunt were living expensively in Chicago. It was good advertisement to live well there; at least it was a bad advertisement not to. It was a bad advertisement for Eldon to appear anywhere. He was under the buffets of fortune. But he tore up his resignation.
Now of all times he needed the comfort of her cheer. Now of all times he could not ask it or accept it. He wrote her a note of devout gratitude, and said that a previous engagement with an old college friend prevented his accepting her gracious hospitality. His old college friend was himself, and they sat in his boarding-house cell and called each other names.